Approval of unnecessary customizations

Approval of unnecessary customizations due to inadequate cost/benefit analysis and lack of business process change analysis

It’s a trap that is easy to fall into… senior management delegates the discovery and design effort to staff, and staff asks for all the features they might ever want in the new AMS, LMS, or Website. Staff’s view of what is needed is based on their experience with the old system and the current business processes. The vendor wants to satisfy staff’s requests, so they design customizations and work-arounds, all of which add time and cost to the project. Management approves the timeline and cost without a thorough cost justification or in-depth analysis of how business processes could be changed in order to avoid the customizations and work-arounds. Ironically, many associations end up paying even more to have some of the customizations removed a few years down the line, after they realize that they were not needed after all and that they compromised the vendor’s support.

The Framework provides a specific methodology for analyzing Business Process Changes, and ISCG professionals can help document workflow diagrams that are easily understood by both vendors and staff. See “No focus on business process change” for additional information on the importance of defining business process changes early in your project.

The Framework’s ROI Value Analysis gives you a tool to analyze potential customizations, and identify the ones that provide the greatest return. Decisions can be made based on what is justified rather than approving everything just because one staff member says “we need it.”

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